Keeping It Peel 2012: What Ain't We Got?

We Ain't Got Mates.

October 25th has become Keeping It Peel Day in recent years, a series of blog tributes to John Peel's radio shows, eclectic tastes and the influence he had on so many people who just wanted to hear the stuff they weren't playing on daytime radio. Recent news stories have left a bit of a bad taste in the mouth where Peel is concerned (even if none of the stories are actually news. He wrote about the underage Texan wife in his autobiography published after he died, having been completed by his wife Sheila). I'm not entirely sure where I stand on all of this re: Peel at the moment but we'll Keep It Peel musically anyway.

Half Man Half Biscuit were Peel Sessioneers on six occasions (I think). The magnificently titled Four Skinny Indie Kids Drinking Weak Lager was from a 1998 session and features Peel introducing it. Verse 1 kicks off with -

'Bleak cheap interview
Pool cue fancy pants
Chic Bates apricot
Short term sweat
Hamstring monument
Shark shit welterweight
Topsoil Chapterhouse
Christ-like mince'

 And has this as a middle eight-

'We’ve got lo-fi, we’ve got tie-dye
We’ve got grey and brown and black
We’ve got stickers on guitars
We’ve got a tape for Steve Lamacq
We’ve got celibate lead singers
We’ve got Sebadoh’s and Docs
But what ain’t we got?
We ain't got mates'

Four Skinny Indie Kids Drinking Weak Lager